Playing with Time
by Gakorogirl
Summary: Tumblr prompt- Steve and Tony are de-aged, with surprising results. (Basically prompt is child! Tony is super insecure and child! Steve is a sassy troublemaker)
1. Chapter 1

**(Idk I found this idea on tumblr please I can't write at all so just assume that everyone has holed up in Stark/Avengers tower after SHIELD went to shit in Cap 2 (I can't believe I'm doing this what if I screw things up okay I'm going to shut up and write the fic now)(Also yay for Pepper cause she's in this too yay))**

"Where's Tony?"

High heels clicked sharply on the floor. Clint Barton, better known as Hawkeye or Agent Barton, glanced up. "Steve. You know anything about it? Rogers? _Earth to Captain America." _

Exasperated, Pepper asked again. "Have either of you seen Tony?"

"Ma'am?"

"I'm not keen on something exploding with this many guests in the tower. _Where's Tony?" _

More footsteps. Quiet. Clint didn't turn around. "Dr. Banner? Have you seen Tony?"

"He's in his lab. Not the official one, the basement one." Pepper paused, turning on her heels. "And what's he doing in his lab?" With a shrug, Bruce answered, "Looked dangerous. JARVIS should know more details, though."

_Mr. Stark is continuing his research into renewable energy sources, based on the leaked HYDRA information on the Tessaract._

"I'll need to talk to him about that." Steve said grimly. "The Tessaract is a dangerous artifact, and I've seen what it can do _twice. _Third time the world might not be so lucky."

In the silence that followed, he stood and headed for the elevator. "Excuse me, ma'am." he said as Pepper leaned back to allow him to pass.

Natasha stepped out as the silver elevator doors slid open, turning her head as Steve waited for her to exit. "In a hurry?"

"Yeah."

The doors slid shut.

Natasha walked over to the couch where Steve had been sitting and smiled at the open computer running at his spot. "I didn't know he could even turn on a computer." she joked. Suddenly, the screen flickered black and the tower shook.

"That can't be good." Clint muttered."Banner? Any ideas?"

"It depends on what Tony's doing in the basement, but I'd say something emitting electromagnetic radiation at a certain frequency could knock out the computer systems, and, since the tower's interconnected-"

The lights flickered out. "- Basically _that _would happen. Not sure what kind of radiation we're dealing with here, though. JARVIS? Can you hear me?"

Silence. Under her breath, Natasha was counting seconds. Nine, before JARVIS' voice returned. _System rebooted. Re-engaging lights. Mr. Stark and Captain Rogers have been caught in a time flux caused by a break in the laboratory containment field._

_"_Meaning... what?"

_They have been changed into their pre-adolescent forms. Approximately eleven years of age._

"Knew it wouldn't be a good day today." Natasha hissed as she stood up and pressed the elevator button. "I'll go see what the damage is."

**Okay great I did the thing. Hopefully I'll be able to finish it in just a few chapters and then anyone reading this can look at someone's work who can actually write.**


	2. Chapter 2

Natasha stepped out of the elevator. "JARVIS, which way to the lab?"

_Left. And then down the hallway with the closed door._

In the hallway leading to the containment area, Natasha found two small figures walking down the hallway. Quietly, she leaned around the door to get a better look at them. The taller one was Tony, for sure- keen eyes, dark hair. Steve was _very_ small- he looked closer to five than eleven.

"Steve? Tony?" She asked cautiously. _No quick movements, _Natasha thought. _There might be side effects. Slow. Walk down the hallway. _Tony jerked back, and both of their eyes widened.

"Who are _you?" _Steve asked. Natasha paused. "You don't remember me."

"Should I?"

She stepped back around the door- neither boy followed her. "What's going on? They didn't recognize me."

_They have been fully deaged. Neither one should remember events that occurred past their eleventh birthdays. _JARVIS replied. Upstairs, someone sighed. "Steve I can handle. Confused, young _Tony Stark? _Might be a little hard to deal with."

Just then, Steve rounded the corner. "Where am I? Send me back _now." _Natasha looked at him. "We have to fix you. You've been deaged. And lost your memories."

His eyes were hard. "Are you an alien? Will you make it so I'm not sick all the time?"

She paused. "Where's Tony? The other boy, you know?"

He wasn't paying attention. "I want to _do _things. This looks like a spaceship. Like in the comics." Natasha tried to step around him, but he moved to block her way. She stopped for a moment and leapt over his head, running down the now-empty corridor. "Tony? Tony?" Slowly, Tony came out of the lab. She realized he hadn't said anything yet. "Do you know who I am?"

"I don't know." he said warily. "All right. You two are going to have to come with me. Upstairs." Still moving cautiously, she took his arm and led him into the elevator. Steve was already there, reaching up to try and press the highest button. "Only to Floor Eighteen, Steve." Standing on the balls of his feet, he pushed the button and the doors slid shut.

"This is the _fastest _elevator I've ever been on." Tony mumbled, pulling his arm out of Natasha's grasp to look out the glass windows. Steve looked absolutely thunderstruck. She noticed that he was starting to gasp a little, but when she began to lean over to check on him he glared and pulled away.

"Hey." Natasha said into the elevator intercom. "Coming up. Both targets are here, and they don't seem hurt. But it's possible that this might be harder than we thought."

**Well... it's getting a little easier to write. I'm sorry if I get any characters wrong- I normally work with minor characters that don't have super distinctive personalities. **


	3. Chapter 3

By the time the elevator doors opened, Steve was wheezing heavily, but still wouldn't allow anyone to touch him. Tony came out of the elevator almost instantly and sat down in the far corner of a couch, sinking into the corner so far he was barely noticeable.

"Well, this is something that's never happened before." Bruce commented as he tried to get a grip on Steve's arm. "Kid, slow down. Breathe. Look at me."

_Excuse me, but Thor is on his way here now. _Announced JARVIS. Both Steve and Tony startled, looking up at the ceiling for the voice.

Sure enough, a rapidly growing speck had appeared in the west window, making a beeline straight for Stark Tower. "Is he going to smash through the window _again?" _someone grumbled. Right before impact, the window slid open, admitting the Asgardian. Not expecting the lack of resistance, Thor nearly crashed into the opposite wall.

"Were you just planning to _fly _through the window?" Clint asked.

With a shrug, Thor replied, "It angers Stark. He is amusing to watch when angered."

"Fair enough." Natasha commented. "But there's been a bit of a problem." Thor looked around anxiously. "What is wrong?" Pepper sighed, answering, "Tony was playing around in his lab and broke time. He's eleven, and so is Captain Rogers."

_Captain Rogers has reentered the elevator and is headed for the ground floor. Currently passing fifth floor. _JARVIS alerted them. "Great. He thinks he's still in 1930. From his perspective, the war hasn't even started yet."

"Well, can we stop him before he reaches the doors?" Clint asked. "Yeah. JARVIS, lock the main doors and bring the elevator back up here." Bruce said.

_Done. Captain Rogers is contained within the elevator and returning to the eighteenth floor._

The elevator doors hummed open to reveal a very confused Steve. He seemed even smaller than he had before, now that he was anxious. Slowly stepping towards the elevator, Bruce spoke evenly. "Hey. You want something to eat?" "Yeah." "Okay. We're going to the kitchen- one of them, anyway. Step out of the elevator." Turning to the couch, he added, "You too, Tony."

Tony shook his head, but stood up warily. Bruce smiled. "Do you talk?"  
>A nod.<p>

As he attempted to usher both children out of the room, he looked curiously at Tony. "Wouldn't have pegged you down for a quiet one."

No answer.

Behind them, Natasha remarked dryly to Thor, "I should've told them you were an alien."

**This bit's sort of short, but it felt like a good place to end the chapter. I might do another one after school today. :)**


	4. Chapter 4

In the kitchen, Tony reached up to touch the intercom buttons. "Don't touch those-" Bruce said warningly.

"What happens if I touch them?"

In the process of trying to pull a chair across the room, Steve said, "Judging from the way this place is wired it'll probably blow up in your face. Don't touch the thing." Chuckling, Bruce replied, "Nothing so dramatic. It might mess up the intercoms around the tower, though. Think you know what you're doing?"

Without turning round, Tony mumbled, "My dad's Howard Stark. The inventor."

"Howard Stark's twenty years old, mac. I don't think he has any kids- _your _age, anyway." Broke in Steve, now on top of the chair and digging through the refrigerator. Just then, Thor entered, pausing in the door as he noticed Steve in the fridge. Tony had finally turned around and was glaring at Steve, who seemed to realize he wasn't much more than half the size of the other boy and grabbed a carton of orange juice that he held out like a sword.

"What is happening?" Thor asked, confused. Natasha and Pepper appeared in the doorway behind him. "This looks interesting." Natasha commented as Pepper elbowed her way past Thor to get into the kitchen.

"What was your full name again?" Tony asked.

_Oh. Oh, that's not good._

_Tony knows who Steve is- who doesn't?_

_He's jealous of him. _

Bruce lunged forward and grabbed Steve to pull the orange juice out of his hands, cutting off his reply.

"Are you sure you want to be here?" someone asked behind him.

"No. No, I don't." he said, and walked quickly out the door.

_Pepper and Natasha can handle it, right?_

Clint was still on the sofa, but he had moved to sitting on the back. "You're crushing the leather, you know." Bruce told him. Glancing down, the agent looked surprised- Bruce wondered if he had even noticed moving. "Oh. That happens sometimes. On edge today, you know? So, any ideas on how we turn them back?"

"There might be enough of whatever power Tony was using to trigger a reverse reaction. I'll go talk to JARVIS about it."

**Sorry- school was a lot more of a load than I anticipated. :(**

**I did, however, get my headcannon that Clint unconsciously moves to the highest place he can reach when he's stressed out there. And spent like an hour looking at '30s slang. Next update might come later today if I get some of my online classes done before then.**


	5. Chapter 5

"Okay. Kids. Now that you've eaten-"

"We can go outside, right?" Steve asked. Pepper glared at him. "Uh, no. We're not letting you out into New York unsupervised."

"That could be true if this were New York. But there's no tower like this in New York."

Sidling across the room, Natasha tossed a penny down the hall, where it clinked against the table and fell to the floor. "What was that?" she asked. When Steve turned his head, she muttered, "We've got pictures of Steve Rogers as a child. Someone would probably recognize him like that and then we'd be in trouble."

"Yeah. What about Tony?"

"Not too sure about that one. He keeps most of his childhood hidden from the public."

"I knew that. I'm trying to remember if _I _ever released early pictures. Don't recall any, though." Pepper answered. "Okay. We just have to keep both of them contained until Bruce can figure out how to reverse the anomaly."

"Do you think he needs some help?" Clint asked from the top of the sofa. Natasha raised an eyebrow. "You don't seem too comfortable here, so go down and ask. Don't interrupt him though, obviously."

"Yeah."

The archer climbed down from the couch, the spot where his feet had been promptly being taken by Tony, who was deeply involved in a book. "What book?"

Tony held up the cover. It was the first _Harry Potter _book. "I had it laying in the back." Pepper said. "I guess he's never read any of them before."

"Oh," she added a second later, "One's escaping." Steve was hurrying towards the elevator, which was just beginning to close. "I've got him." Natasha sighed. It only took her a few strides to catch up to the boy and clamp her hand on his wrist. A second later, the elevator doors slid shut.

**Sorry this chapter wasn't too interesting- I might try to do another one sometime over the weekend. :)**


	6. Chapter 6

**I am back and my relatives are _finally _gone. :)**

"So JARVIS had some interesting data recorded on the experiment." Bruce said, reentering the room. "There might be a temporal anomaly in Tony's lab, but we only have a window of an hour before it hypothetically collapses."

"All right, then." Clint said from on top of the bookshelf. "All we have to do is get them in there?"

"Why are you up there?" Tony asked, glancing up from his book.

"Why are you down there?"

Tony ducked his head and moved to the far side of the room. Natasha, still holding tightly onto Steve's arm, commented, "How do we know it won't make them younger again? I don't know about all of you but I certainly don't want to be on babysitting duty for much longer." Her jaw tensed as Steve tried- again- to twist away. "You might get hurt doing that," she warned him.

Bruce answered her, "I'll have to try and reverse the reaction, then collapse it. They should end up... approximately... at the right ages. Probably."

"Why do we not take them to Asgard?" Thor asked. "I am certain that my people could control the effects of the anomaly much better than- it is possible to do here."

"Or we could leave them small. Tony certainly isn't much trouble now." Clint added. "Oh yeah and I'm not planning on explaining what happened when the public finds out what's going on."

"At least we don't have SHIELD to barge in."

Pepper walked to the side of the room and slammed her hand onto the fire alarm. "Are you _all done?" _

There was silence as she canceled the alarm. "Look, we have to change them both back, because without Captain America or Iron Man, we wouldn't be here today. We can't let them grow up in the wrong time, trying to hide what they're supposed to be. Asgard could be an option, but we _do _have to make a descision, you know, at some point before the anomaly collapses. Okay?"

**To be continued! (And thank you for your patience. :)**


	7. Chapter 7

"I vote we try the anomaly." Natasha announced. Clint nodded, adding, "I'm just not going down there."

"Yeah, I'll have to go down there. It's a pretty contained area, from the readings, so I should be able to reverse the reaction and get out." Bruce answered. "Only problem is getting them to stay put."

Across the room, Tony put down the book. "Um, do you- do you have anything else to read?"

"Did you finish already?" someone asked.

"It was easy."

Bruce checked the time and began to walk cautiously over to Steve, who had begun to wheeze. "Hey, Steve?"

No answer.

"So we're aliens, right?"

A nod. Everyone looked over at Steve in concern (except Tony, who was trying to push Clint's legs out of the way so he could look for a new book.) Bruce continued soothingly, "What if we could- um- fix the-" He waved a hand loosely at Steve. "-health- issues. Would you do something we asked you to?"

"What?" Steve coughed. His breathing looked like it was beginning to get better.

"Stand somewhere and be very, very still. Tony would be there too."

"Yeah, I think I'm up to that challenge."

Bruce chuckled. "Steve? Tony? We're going to the basement, okay? Follow me."

"I'll keep an eye on the readings from up here." Natasha volunteered. "Good. Pepper should be able to give you access to the system. If anything goes- well- if you have to, drop the blast doors. They should be able to hold anything back."

"Got it. Good luck."

**To be continued! (And thank you for your patience. :) Little short chapter today, I've been sick for a pretty long time.)**


End file.
